Thursday, September 30, 2010

The first I knew of Michael Gizzi came in the form of three small books of poetry sent to me by Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop more than two decades ago. I reviewed them for the journal Gargoyle. If you're reading this on a smaller screen, you probably can't make out the text in these images -- but feel free to download them for easier viewing.

When I got news of Michael's death yesterday, I remembered the quotation from Ponge with which I began my review. A fine title for Michael Gizzi's complete poems would be "Reasons for living happily."

Join us for the next in our series of conferences Celebrating African American Literature, which will focus on representations of race and sexual identity throughout the history of the tradition. Confirmed speakers and presenters include

A PSU Outreach event sponsored by the College of the Liberal Arts, the Africana Research Center, the Department of English, the Equal Opportunity Planning Committee, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Kelly Family Professor Aldon Nielsen, and the African American Literature and Culture Society.

Submit abstracts at AfAmLit@outreach.psu.eduby February 5, 2011. Email notifications will be sent by April 1, 2011. Conference presenters must register by August 15, 2011.

Submit questions about website/travel/lodging/directions to Jlf30@psu.edu

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

That familiar defamiliarization of Melvin Edwards's art betokens the return of the original firespitter. Jayne Cortez' s first book since THE BEAUTIFUL BOOK is, as it happens, this beautiful book from Hanging Loose Press. The last "new & selected" volume from Cortez was 1984's COAGULATIONS (though the 2002 JAZZ FAN LOOKS BACK really did look back, it was limited to poems related to the music), so this is a particulraly useful publication for those of us who want to order Cortez titles for teaching.